An increasing number of people use cameras to take photographs and/or camcorders to make videos to capture their experiences and document events in their lives. Known video playback, browsing and editing applications, such as multivideo editing applications (MEAs), allow a user to bring versatility to such video recordings and photographs via a personal computer by allowing the user to capture or transfer the video or photograph onto the computer as a video file and to manually segment the digital video file into a recording or clip that displays events of the user's choosing. Some MEAs make this easier for the user by attempting to automatically detect shot boundaries within a particular video file. Thereafter, the MEA may segment the video file into shots that are displayed in a library or menu to allow the user to manually select shots and combine them to form a desired recording. The MEA may also allow the user to add animation or special effects (video effects) to selected shots or clips included in the recording. For example, the user may want to include a photo or video collage effect in the recording to display multiple photos and/or video clips on the display at a given time.
Conventional MEAs use video tracks to enable the user to create such video effects. For example, a conventional MEA allows the user to create a photo or video collage effect by adding one or more video clips on a timeline that corresponds to a specific period of time, and by manually adjusting the size and locations of each video clips on the timeline. For example, FIG. 1 shows five video tracks 102, 104, 106, 108, and 110 used to create a photo collage for ten photos, labeled A-J. In this example, the photos are added to the video tracks by a user (e.g., via a drag-and-drop operation) and are staggered with respect to a timeline 112 such that only one or two of the photos are displayed at any given time. As can be seen, photo A is positioned on video track 102 and photo B is positioned on video track 104 such that photo A is displayed first and photo B is displayed next. After photo B is displayed, photo C, which is positioned on video track 106, is displayed. This pattern continues for the remaining photos. Thus, by staggering photos on the timeline 112 and adjusting the size and location of the photos, multiple photos can be shown at the same time to create a photo collage effect. This same technique can also be applied to video files and video clips. That is, by staggering video clips on the timeline 112 and adjusting the size and location of the video clips, multiple video clips can be shown at the same time to create video collage effect. Nevertheless, this technique is tedious and difficult for most users to master. For example, in order to display five photos on the screen at a given time, the user is required to add the five video tracks, add a resize effect to each video clip, add fade-in and fade-out effects, add key frames to each video to determine positioning and motion, stagger photos on timeline to create collage effect, and manually adjust the duration of each photo and video clip. Moreover, adding additional photos, rearranging photos, changing photo durations, determining each photos position is extremely task intensive. For example, to adjust the duration of each photo from five (5) seconds to seven (7) seconds would require the user to manually adjust the duration and location of each photo on the time. To create a three photo animated collage would require the user to rearranging the photos on the timeline so that three photos are aligned vertically at given points on the timeline.